The staff of Guard post 457 took a step back, as their leader Major Remi Wux had another of her womanly fits. Whatever message her father, Emperor Wixtal Xi, had sent her had drove her up the walls.
And now the woman sat pouting on the wall of the command center. "Hmpf! Just because father is a horny scumbag, it doesn't mean any progeniture he accidentally created during a Roaming is my brother..." she muttered and sobbed.
"Is this about the new Emperor, boss?" her second in command, Major Lara Denzon asked in a peaceful tone. Lara had a strange problem with her hair, the black ending with bluish highlights and her golden aura too, which caused the woman lots of problems in her past.
Remi didn't fault her for whatever twist of fate made her look strange, but it also meant poor Lara didn't have any other friends.
"Of course it is! That idiot has the whole continent gossiping and speculating. Two waves at the Wall, in a single year. With zero casualties. And he even killed an Emperor rank snake!" Remi muttered and flew down from her perch.
"So? Seems pretty much normal for any Emperor..." Lara continued, while gesturing for the rest of the staff to get out.
"For any the Xi line, trained by the Patriarch for a hundred years! Not for a boy, not even 20 years old..." Remi complained, poking her new wine cup.
Made of copper, it was supposedly priceless.
Just a melted stone, which clinked nicely when you clinked it with a nail.
Some of the mummers in Senra Wix, the capital, were experimenting with thin copper bands or discs to produce sharp musical sounds, and were all the rage these days.
Another invention created by her supposed brother. Gah! She hated his guts already.
"Let's go patrol the perimeter, boss...we'll drink after dinner" Lara said with a knowing smile.
Remi sniffed but listened. Her second was always right, damn her.
Lara will return to her post leader position, once her command training was complete. In a decade, or so. Or by surviving a beast wave with proof of effective leadership.
The Major flew over the training grounds, where her Guard regiment was Practicing the spear like Pef had promoted and Wall Command and Control had implemented this month. Zero casualties couldn't be just luck or Emperor abilities. Beasts always got through, and butchered some men. Always.
Well, unless the Patriarch or his Tyrants were on site, in which case there wasn't a fighting wave anymore, just watching in amazement as those old monsters wiped out everything.
Remi was kinda dejected at the performance of her men. Spearmen, pathetic lunges, weak and slow. The new Shieldbearers were bashed away at every strike by their trainers.
The archers did better, but then they had time to concentrate and release, which wouldn't work with a thousand screaming beasts, spitting poison and launching soul strikes at them.
A Sky rank would be able to resist or fly around, and an Emperor nearly immune, but the Guards would die by the hundreds.
Still, the Wall Command had seen something in Pef's new invention and were eager to duplicate those results. And thus she cursed her idiot brother again.
Further out in the barren zone, the regulars were busy digging and setting up pit traps and spiked ditches while her ranked Guards were layering the terrain to create a funnel shape.
Nothing obvious, just copying the gentle rolling mounds of stone and earth that her brother used to direct the beast waves into a killing field of spears and arrows.
The beasts weren't stupid and would smell a trap if it was too obvious. And they would avoid it, bunching up towards the center.
Gah. How did the newborn Pef come up with some many things?
Another week passed, while the 457 Guard regiment trained and practiced.
Remi and Lara had to exert themselves and craft strong spearheads for the Guard, and had little time for talks and drinks. Which sucked. It was all Pef's fault!
Then one day, two airships came flying over the canal, and Remi flew up to greet her brother.
A flash of speed, and a young man passed her by, and was hugging a confused Lara with a wide smile. "Hey, you're really pretty, sis!" he told Lara and patted her hair and back.
"Idiot brother! Leave Lara alone..." Remi yelled in outrage.
Pef spun around, still holding her valued friend and second at his chest, using the woman as a shield. "Errr. Who are you?" the Emperor asked with a naive face.
"She's Remi Wix. Your actual sister, Emperor..." the hugged woman said while blushing a bit.
Pef flew back a step, scanning Lara up and down for a minute. "Are you sure? I kinda like you. And that woman scorns me..." he said in a hesitant manner, then stepped back in, to continue the hug.
Golden auras were rare, and he didn't want to let go. The glove didn't blame him either.
'Excellent initiative, Aspirant. Make sure, you keep this Lara!' it said with a snicker.
'That was my plan!' the young man exclaimed inside.
Lara was a bit torn, as the hug was really pleasant, the Emperor seemed kinda cute, if silly, and he was right about Remi scorning him.
"We're in public, Emperor Pef..." Lara said softly, as there were 15 thousand people staring at them, from the fort and the airships.
A woman jumped wildly from the other airship, and nearly missed the encounter, except for Pef flying up a bit and grabbing the reckless woman. She was a Sky rank too, but too new to her powers just fell a bit slower.
"This is Xie, my loyal but monstruous wife. She killed an Emperor rank snake, you see..." Pef said as an introduction.
"What!" both Remi and Lara cried in disbelief.
Xie slapped the Emperor over his stupid head, then kissed his cheek, making everyone blink.
"Don't believe everything Pef says. He's a moron and says things to confuse people." the wife explained with a wry smile.
"We could stop for today and rest. I could cook something..." Pef said thoughtfully, while still hugging two women to his sides, one of them blushing heavily.
"We do have the best wine on the continent..." Lara proposed as a way to get away.
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"Right, should I let you go or will you fall and hate me forever?" Pef asked with a worried tone.
" I earned my Major rank, Emperor." Lara explained curtly. Pef had to grudgingly let the woman go, for now.
Pef dropped his wife as well, watching her fall towards the ground, with a mischievous grin.
Then he sped and matched her speed, and gave her a flight permit tablet! In full view of the audience.
Lara thought it was rather noble and cute gesture, but Remi sputtered in outrage again.
"That's not how those things are given...damn idiot..."
Two Majors on Pef's staff flew out of the airships, and started pulling them down, and so Remi and Lara came to land as well.
Soon, the air filled with amazing smells of beast meat, being grilled, fried, roasted and boiled over a handful of metal stoves, the men in Pef's company swiftly dividing tasks to clean or slice various herbs, chop wood for the stoves or summon water for the pots.
It had taken a few months, but by now Pef had a capable restaurant crew, helping him create
the daily divine meals.
Feeding nearly a hundred people wasn't an easy task, unless they munched on a tasteless Legion corn to stave off hunger.
Remi and Lara stayed to the side, watching the ritual with amazed faces.
"Pef is cooking, and the Guards help..." Remi observed in a wondering manner.
"And it smells so good...I hope we're invited" Lara mused with a salivating mouth.
"He better invite us, or he sleeps in the forest" Remi argued while desperately trying to fuel the hate, but failing at it.
After some two hours of torturous wait, trays with five different types of meals were set up and laid on wooden tables, and Pef gestured towards Remi and Lara.
"Come and join us, Majors. We had a bountiful year at fort 413 and still have tons of delicious beasts left" he explained while pointing out various dishes.
Xie nodded in agreement, already devouring her second dish.
The two women leading the 457 fort began considering if perhaps beast waves were a sort of divine gift, to feed to Guard amazing meals, instead of terrors to warn children about.
Lara tried to take small nibbles and eat delicately, but after a few bites she gave in and wolfed down everything on her tray, making Pef grin amused.
'Now, how do I get this one?' Pef asked himself glancing at Xie with a raised eyebrow.
His wife shrugged carelessly. With his stupid luck, an opportunity will appear, she didn't doubt it one bit.
Pef squeezed his last 10 oranges, filling 5 glass cups with orange juice as the lunch was over.
Xie, Erin and Pela got theirs first, and then Pef offered the last two cups to his sister and her friend. "Fruit juice. Tastes nice..." He explained with a smile.
The Majors took a sip cautiously, then gulped the nectar in seconds.
"Ah, it was really good, brother...I mean Emperor..." Remi admitted with a sour face.
"So Wixtal made a qi method for you both?" Pef asked to make sure. It was the system used here on Blue Xi, provincial emperors proved themselves crafting a qi method to be used by their soldiers.
The Emperors themselves received the original Legion indoctrination, and then were trained by the old Sovereign, until they could form their sword qi.
Once they had a heir, they could begin Roaming, flying around the planet to fight beasts or bed men, gaining experience and tempering themselves through adventure and hardship.
And when they died, the heir would take over the province and receive the real method again. Such has been the system in the Patriarchy for nearly 200 thousand years.
And like any self-respecting Patriarchy, only men had power. Or rather, only men were given the Legion method.
Women could still advance til Sky rank and contribute, especially at the Wall or various building projects. It happened rarely though, unless an Emperor saw promise in a new Guardwoman and arranged for a successful career.
Later that day, Pef and the five ladies retreated for some wine and chats.
"So, how come my dad promoted you to major?" he asked Lara with some ulterior purpose.
"Must be her aura. Only the Emperor has the other golden aura on the continent" Remi said instead, drinking her fifth cup of rice wine. Rank had privileges, and here at the Wall that meant wine.
"Still, you're not sisters? Are you sure?" Pef asked with a wary tone.
"I grew up in town Wix 468. My parents were both regulars, and my golden aura was a surprise to everyone. Plus people would have noticed if the Emperor ever visited our town" Lara explained with a shrug.
'Lara's not your sister, Aspirant. We would use sibling love to recruit her then.' the glove offered as an alternative.
'And Wixtal Xi has a golden aura too. You could have told me!' Pef yelled inside.
'He was my best candidate til now, for a reason. Your father is special, as you will find out' it answered after a minute. That's why it had insisted on the prolonged Awakening.
The Cutting Skill was expected, as most tier 7s would splinter a shard of their immortal soul to their offspring, and give them a variant of the edict which formed the transcendent essence of their divinity.
Still, Wixal wasn't the one. His mind was too anchored on this planet's paradigm and would likely never cross past Sovereign rank. Plus, that man was simply unlucky in love. Maybe a karma debt or something.
The glove had filtered and tested untold probabilities until it found a way to generate an Ascendant, and make it remain human instead of an atrocious mix of myths and fabulations draining various energies to reach a pitiful low divinity.
That path was sterile in a tier 1 universe, not enough qi density to extract nightmares or drain galaxies of life, for a tier 5 Abomination to form.
Volcanis had a chance to achieve his tier 2, as long as his followers kept donating heat to their god.The rest of the Loose Divinities were too stupid or self-centered to ascend again.
Hopefully, the user would terminate this bunch of overgrown myths and cleanse the planet of brutish or uncultured savages who lucked out to discard their mortality.
"Well, have fun with your harem, bro. I'm going to rest..." Remi said after her tenth wine cup, and stumbled away to pass her night in misery.
Lara rose to follow, but a light tap on her hand made her stop.
"Not so fast, my lady" Pef said softly. Xie lifted a finger and swirled qi around the room, blocking casual spying.